‘Over 12,000 images and videos found on computer’
A NICOSIA municipality employee has been remanded in custody for six days on suspicion of owning and selling child pornography.
The suspect was pinged by the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) after Interpol intercepted the IP address on his computer downloading a video containing child pornography from a website.
According to CID officials, Interpol have passed information over to the Cypriot authorities suggesting three more people on the island were believed to have been downloading from the same website.
It is unknown when or if more arrests will be made.
CID Investigator Alexis Mavros yesterday told the court the suspect was under suspicion of being in illegal possession of child pornography; investigations will also be conducted to determine whether or not the suspect had been trading the images and videos or was part of a web dealing in child pornography.
Investigators believe the suspect has also had a live link up with children on his computer with the use of a web cam.
“We went to the suspect’s home on Thursday morning and seized five computers that he had in his office in his home,” said Mavros. “On one of his computers, we discovered 12,484 images and videos of images and videos of sexually exploited minors.”
The 45-year-old father of three young children denied any wrongdoing, telling arresting officers that he did not know how the child pornography had ended up on the computer.
“We will also be looking into whether any of the children in the pictures or videos are from Cyprus,” said Mavros, who pointed out that the suspect would have to sit down with investigators and go through every single picture and video to see if he recognises any of the adults or children.
“Out of all the cases of child pornography images and videos seized on the island, only once has there been a child from Cyprus involved,” added Mavros.
He went on to tell the court: “Our investigations have not been helped by the suspect’s silence during questioning. He has so far refused to answer any questions, as have his wife and his brother. As a result, we may be forced to bring in welfare officials to assess the situation regarding the three young children as is usually the procedure in cases like these.”
Defence lawyer John Mylonas accused the police of wrongfully demanding to keep his client in remand for six days, because they were not “efficient enough” to finish off their preliminary investigations sooner.
Mylonas also claimed that his client, who works at the computer administration department of the Nicosia Municipality, also fixes computers at his home as a second job and that the material seized belongs to somebody else.
But his argument was rejected by Judge Michalis Ambizas, who said that the requested time from the prosecution was not too long, before ruling that the suspect be held in custody for six days in light of the early suspicions against him.
